Moviephile

If you read my other blog, Booktastic, this is going to be a bit of a repetitive day for you - sorry.  It can’t be helped, as it seems only appropriate to comment on the passing of Michael Crichton in both a book blog and a movie blog, what with his involvement in both areas.

I can’t imagine that you never heard of him… Unless you are something like five years old. If you were born in or before the 90’s, however, you must have heard of at least one of the movies based on his books - like, for instance, a little old Sci-Fi flick called Jurassic Park. You may also have heard of some TV show he created, called E.R.  Both pretty obscure now, of course. (I kid.)

Of course, there have also been some clunkers. I was never a fan of The Thirtheenth Warrior, or that film about the talking monkeys and the diamond mine (was that Congo, or am I confusing that with some other movie about talking monkeys and diamonds?)

However, this seems like an innappropriate time to criticise his efforts. If there’s one thing that needs to be said right now, it’s that Michael Crichton succeeded in strongly influencing sci-fi films. I believe that can be agreed even by his critics.

I had been thinking the other day that it seems like a long time since I’ve heard about a new Michael Crichton book… and then, this morning, was met by the headline that he had just passed away. He was 66 years old. 

Well, Mr. Hall and I finally watched another Hammer horror movie. (Yes, since it is now Halloween we have officially failed our quest to watch all the Hammer Draculas and Frankensteins by Halloween - but, oh well! It was a fun endeavour and leaves us room for more Halloween viewing next time around). This one was called The Brides of Dracula. It really should have been called “Only Faintly Connected to Dracula” - because Dracula had almost nothing to do with it, and the Brides only somewhat figured in (and weren’t actually his bride, anyway). Mr. Hall suggested that it should have been called “Son of Dracula”, because the real villain was this young Baron who had been turned by Dracula. Not that he was much of a villain: he succeeded in vampirizing just three girls in this film, and one of them was his own mother (gross!). Then, in the climactic scenes, Van Helsing totally whaled on the guy - until the vampire choked Van Helsing with a chain. I was sitting there asking why the vampire wasn’t using any otherworldly powers on him (no explanation. Guess he was just tired of using his vampire powers and felt like besting Van Helsing using old-fashioned fisticuffs.) The film had a few boring moments, some inexplicable plot devices and a rather compressed ending - but we were more or less happy with it, and the way Van Helsing defeated the vampire was pretty original.

Last night, we viewed our official Halloween movie and carved pumpkins. Our “official” movie is Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting, which is THE MOST TERRIFYING MOVIE I HAVE EVER SEEN. You know what makes this movie so scary? You never see any of the monsters. You are left to imagine the horrors of Hill House, and that is far scarier than anything they could possibly have shown. It is highly, highly unsettling, and will leave you feeling that ghosts are going to get into your brain.

By the way, I am talking about the 1960’s version of the film, not the recent remake. That film, by all accounts, sucks.

Then, because we were scared of ghosts, we watched It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! This was a good way to finish off the evening. I don’t know if we’re going to do any Halloween viewing tonight, because last Halloween I was so swamped with Trick-or-Treaters that I didn’t get an opportunity to do anything but answer the door…

Last night we did some more viewing of “classic” Halloween movies: we watched Arsenic and Old Lace, one of my favorites.

This is a classic stage farce adapted for the screen. Like many things adapted for the screen from the stage, the scenes they added so that it wouldn’t all take place in one room are kind of silly and unecessary - but it’s still an extremely enjoyable film.

It’s very funny, has classic lines and an excellent fast pace. It’s dark funny with a light twist. And it stars the inimitable Cary Grant. You definitely need to watch it if you haven’t already.

But I would like to take a moment to complain about the cover-art for the recent DVD release. Would you look at this and tell me if this looks like a dark comedy that takes place at halloween and features two (or, if you want to be strict, twenty-four) murders and psychotic dementia? I think not. It looks like some goofy romantic comedy about Cary Grant kidnapping girls.

Afterwards, in a totally non-Halloween move, we watched Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II.  This sparked some very intelligent conversation about whether the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were too closely tied to the 1990’s to be successful now. And also some slightly less intellectual conversation about why they only eat pizza and why they don’t ever get tired of it, and how old the “teenage” ninja turtles actually would be. You know. Important stuff like that.

Sorry I haven’t posted in a couple days. First day, I didn’t post because I actually hadn’t watched any movies that day. Second day, I didn’t post because our Internet spontaneously decided it wasn’t going to work that day (that seems to happen occasionally when it rains). Third day, I didn’t post because I was busy voting (early voting in Chicago!) and then catching up on movie watching!

Last night another two Hammer Dracula movies came in the mail - so, of course, rather than watch them and get closer to our goal, we watched Ghostbusters II and Ernest: Scared Stupid.

You would think that after Ghostbusters being such a superb film that the sequel would be great too, right? WRONG! Ghostbusters II fails on many levels. It failed in both trying to do new things and repeating things from the first movie. It failed in spontaneity, it failed in character development. It even failed musically: where Ghostbusters has a very appealing Elmer Bernstein soundtrack with kicky rock songs throughout, Ghostbusters II has an obnoxious, cartoony score with ultra-obnoxious 90’s rap throughout. Oh, and remember how there were a lot of really good lines in the first one? I can’t remember a single good line from this movie. Oh, and remember how Winston was really cool in the first one? Well, in this one they shaved his mustache off, gave him an Arsenio Hall hairdo and made him scream like a girl on a number of occasions. Shameful! Just shameful.

Oh, I suppose this movie might be okay if you viewed it as an independant, completely-un-associated-with-the-first-one film - but if you compare it in anyway to the first, it falls flat. You know, there are even some moments where I felt like a like could have been funny, but the actor saying it failed to intone it correctly or something and it simply didn’t work. All and all, I would advise you to simply watch the first movie and pretend that this one doesn’t exist. That’s what I do.

No Halloween viewing last night: Mr. Hall worked late and I don’t watch that stuff without him. The closest we came to watching a movie was watching one Simpsons “Treehouse of Horror” episode. Doesn’t count as a movie, though, so I won’t mention it.

Two more Hammer Dracula movies arrived in the mail from Netflix, along with an Eastside Kids flick called Spooks Run Wild. I love that movie: that was another one of our Halloween mainstays when I was a child.

The Eastside Kids were one of the various names of a group originally known as The Dead End Kids. The Dead End Kids were so-named because they were featured in a Broadway play called Dead End. It was a social drama of the time period and featured slum conditions and cursing (shocking!) - and these New York kids who were tough-talking and crude. Well, the play got made into a movie, also called Dead End. It was popular enough that the entire troupe of kids got featured in another movie about poverty and crime: Angels With Dirty Faces. This was an extremely popular (and extremely good) James Cagney movie.  (You should probably check that movie out as well.)

The Dead End kids made a few other films. Members were gained and lost, and their name changed from the Dead End Kids to “The Little Tough Guys” and “The Eastside Kids”. By the time they were the Eastside Kids, it was no longer social drama; with the exception of a little patriotic melodrama during WWII, it was all about the comedy. The group’s final incarnation, The Bowery Boys, was simply straight-up low-brow comedy with no attempt at social awareness (which is fine by me).

As I said, if this is the first time you’ve ever heard of this group, you seriously need to check it out. At one time they were extremely well-known: Leo Gorcey, the sometime leader of the kids, was even featured on the original cover of the Beatles’s Sgt. Pepper’s album, but was deleted when his representation demanded payment.

We finally watched that Hammer Frankenstein we had been delaying! I told you the wrong title last time: it wasn’t The Curse of Frankenstein, it was The Evil of Frankenstein . However, the title was something of a misnomer…

If that had been the title of the first Hammer Frankenstein movie, it would have fit. You know how most Frankenstein movies have him as a more or less sympathetic (but misguided) character who eventually realizes the error of his ways? Well, in the Hammer version he was just outright evil - I mean, cheating on his fiance with the parlor maid and everything, and absolutely unrepentant.

They more or less continued this theme in the second one, and also introduced some odd twists (for instance, if one of Frankenstein’s creations gets a head trauma after the operation, he or she becomes a cannibal).

However, in The Evil of Frankenstein, they more or less re-imagined the origin story so that he was a sympathetic character. All the evil in the film was actually perpetrated by a hypnotist who used his evil hypnotic powers over the monster to make him kill people and steal from churches.

I will say that this film had better production values than either of the other ones I’ve seen. However, it was also kind of boring. My husband fell asleep right through the middle of the movie and I didn’t really feel the need to wake him up until the end. I hope they improve after this one!

After that, we watched Beetlejuice. You know what? That’s a pretty bizarre movie. I’ve seen it several times, but between every viewing I seem to forget that it has Alec Baldwin, Katherine O’Hara, Dick Cavett and a whole troupe of people in it… I really only remember Gina Davis and Michael Keaton.  Which is not to say that everybody else gave bad performances… It’s just like I purposefully block out all the details of this movie in-between viewings.

I find it unsettling. I’m not really much of a “dark humor” person… And this really is dark, black, morbid humor in this movie. However, it must be said that it is a decent film with a good story, good acting, good cinematography and design, and that it encourages Goth kids to get over themselves and work on school.

And you know what? Michael Keaton is a really good actor. I mean, he’s really good. I find it an absolute shame that he doesn’t get more work. If I ever get to make a movie, I’ll definitely find a role for him in it.

Something tells me we’re not going to be able to watch all of those Hammer movies by Halloween. Maybe it’s the fact that we’re simply out of time at this point: we’d have to watch at least one a day and Netflix just isn’t that obliging.

However, I would like to take this chance to plug Netflix (and I don’t even get paid for this: I just think it’s that good). As far as movie rental websites go, they’re the tops. Really, if you have an internet connection, it makes no sense for you to rent movies the old-fashioned way. The last time I actually went to a video rental place and rented a couple movies, it was inconvenient and very expensive (TEN BUCKS for just two movies! Only for like three days, as well!) and was actually what convinced me to try Netflix, because I realized that if I bought the ten dollar a month membership, as long as I watched more than two movies a month I was actually saving money and time. Well, now we’ve upgraded our membership, and we generally watch somewhere in the region of eight to twelve rented DVDs a month, so we’re doing good, we’re saving money, and we never have to make inconvenient trips downtown (usually a round trip of two hours, counting walking and transfers) to return DVDs. As I said, I did NOT (and probably will not) get paid for plugging Netflix, but I just admire the service so much that I have to sing its praises. Back to your regularly scheduled programming.

We did manage to do a bit more Halloween viewing last night - but, once again, we passed on that Frankenstein movie. The problem is, we also have all of these “standard” halloween movies that we have to watch before the big day, such as Ernest Goes Stupid, The Haunting, Arsenic and Old Lace and so on. We watched The Night Stalker last night, and it was good, as I said.

We also watched The Labyrinth, which only by a stretch of the imagination is a Halloween movie. I guess it kind of counts… I mean, some of those puppets really are frightening.

Well, last night was a further fail in the “get all the Hammer movies watched by Halloween” goal: in spite of the fact that we have The Curse of Frankenstein waiting on our shelf to be watched, we re-watched the movie Ghostbusters .

I don’t know very many people who haven’t seen the movie Ghostbusters yet. In fact, I can only think of one - and she was fictional: Mia Farrow’s character in the movie Be Kind Rewind (which featured many Ghostbusters references, by the way).

However, if you are one of the few actual, real, non-fictional people who haven’t seen it yet, I highly recommend it. I’m tremendously biased, of course, since I’ve been watching that movie since childhood and have loved it the whole time… It’s a great concept with great performances and some great lines. In the DVD commentary, they said something to the effect of, “This movie has the most t-shirt lines ever…” And (with the possible exception of Napoleon Dynamite) it’s true! I can think of so many great one-off lines from Ghostbusters…  in fact, at this point, many of them have been done-to-death, as it were (”He slimed me.” “Back off, man. I’m a scientist.”), but that doesn’t lessen their original beauty.

So, for Halloween viewing, I definitely recommend Ghostbusters. However, I do not recommend Ghostbusters II , which was not a good movie. I prefer to pretend that one doesn’t exist.

Here’s a Halloween-related bit of viewing for you: a pair of TV movies from the 1970’s called, respectively, The Night Stalker and The Night Strangler . They feature Darren McGavin , beloved star of The Christmas Story, and lots of jazzy, oily, 1970’s style horror.

I grew up watching these movies and always just assumed that they were typical Halloween viewing. However, as it turns out, most people haven’t even heard of them. They were the most-viewed TV movies of all time when they were released - yet, who (outside of people at comic conventions) knows what I’m talking about when I mention them? This is in spite of the fact that they were written by Richard Matheson (famed author of stories such as I Am Legend. You might have heard of that one.)

They are very of their time period, but I believe that they’re still enjoyable and scary (more the Stalker than the Strangler in that category, though. The Strangler is more creepy than scary).  They’re all about an un-couth newspaper reporter named Kolchak and his suspicion that the police are covering-up something in a recent string of bizarre murders. It turns out he’s right, of course, and lots of scariness ensues.

A television series based on these movies was released (also starring McGavin), called Kolchak: The Night Stalker . It was a short-lived series and the episodes varied widely in quality. Some episodes are really good - and some episodes (especially the final one, as I recall, which featured an original-Star-Trek-looking waking reptile as the monster) were just plain bad. However, if you’re a fan of the X-Files, you’ll probably want to check it out, because X-Files was heavily inspired by it. It’s not a coincidence that McGavin guested on a couple episodes of that. It also spawned an extremely short-lived 2005 television remake called Kolchak: The Night Stalker - which, as I recall, lasted about half an episode before getting cancelled. I don’t recommend that one.

So, if you haven’t already, go over to Netflix and request The Night Stalker (and The Night Strangler: I believe they’re a double-feature on one disc).  You’ll be glad (or possibly scared) that you did.

As usual, when the month of October arrives, I and Mr. Hall make an attempt to watch exclusively Halloween-related films until Halloween.

The problem is that we either are stymied by Netflix or wind up watching non-Halloween related things and run out of time. Last year I don’t remember watching any Halloween-related films, namely because Mr. Hall was working nights and I don’t like to watch scary things by myself… in an empty house… in the dark…

The year before that, though, I was particularly proud of us. We decided we would watch representative films of the Vampire, Werewolf and Frankenstein genres and compare and contrast them as an intellectual exercise during October. So we selected the classic Universal versions of Dracula , The Wolf Man and Frankenstein , and two or three more modern remakes/redos of each, and then compared and contrasted. This actually went surprisingly well and was very interesting and insightful. It was very interesting to see, for instance, how the werewolf genre developed and changed over time without really changing the essential points of the original Wolf Man movie. Also, now I know that the Jack Nicholson movie Wolf  sucks, as does The Bride , and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein . (Sorry, Branagh.) However, we discovered An American Werewolf In London , a movie we both enjoyed, so all and all I feel it was a successful endeavor.

This year we’re trying something slightly different. Mr. Hall and I have never seen the famous Hammer Horror movies, so we’re making an attempt to watch all of the Hammer Frankenstein and Dracula movies before Halloween. This may be a tough squeeze, especially since there are a heck of a lot of them and nearer to Halloween they’ll doubltessly get harder to get through Netflix - but we’re trying. So far we’ve watched the first Hammer Dracula, The Horror of Dracula , and two Frankensteins - we’ve got a third lying on the table in wait. So, we’re a bit behind. But I’m stacking them at the top of our queue, so if nothing else we’ll give them a run for their money. More thoughts (on the Hammer movies we’ve watched) to come later. - Mrs. Hall